I spent five years at Forbes writing about business and leadership, attracting nearly one million unique visitors to Forbes.com each month. While here, I assistant edited the annual World’s 100 Most Powerful Women package and helped launch and grow ForbesWoman.com. I've appeared on CBS, CNBC, MSNBC and E Entertainment and speak often at conferences and events on women's leadership topics. I graduated summa cum laude from New York University with degrees in journalism and sociology and was honored with a best in business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) in 2012. My work has appeared in Businessweek, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Aesthete and Acura Style. I live in New York City with my husband and can be found on Twitter @Jenna_Goudreau, Facebook, and Google+.

The States People Are Fleeing In 2013

Long-term shifts in the U.S. economy coupled with the recent recession means Americans are more likely to pack up and move for employment-related reasons. Although the total number of residential moves is down, new data shows a clear pattern of the states that people are fleeing the fastest.

Moving company United Van Lines released its 36th annual study of customer migration patterns, analyzing a total of 125,000 moves across the 48 continental states in 2012. The study provides an up-to-date, representative snapshot of overarching moving patterns in the U.S., and reveals a mass exodus from the Northeast.

At No. 1, New Jersey has the highest ratio of people moving out compared to those moving in. Of the 6,300 total moves tracked in the state last year, 62% were outbound.

“New Jersey has been suffering from deindustrialization for some time now, as manufacturing moved from the Northeast to the South and West,” says economist Michael Stoll, professor and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “And because it’s tied to New York, the high housing costs may also be pushing people out.”

The economy has been a major push factor for residents in the Frost Belt, particularly those in hard-hit areas like Michigan. “They had a terrific excess of people as a result of the collapse of the economy,” says Stoll. Detroit, the state’s largest city, has the highest metropolitan unemployment rate in the U.S. At 20%, it more than doubles the national average.

At the same time, Stoll says local employment trends combined with high costs of living causes many displaced workers to look for greener pastures. New York City, for example, consistently ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the nation. If you’ve lost your job, shelling out the median $4,000 monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is likely no longer feasible or attractive.

The Northeast and Midwest also feature a comparatively high concentration of residents over 65, says Stoll, who tend to retire to states that are warmer and less expensive. That’s why southern and western states are some of the most popular places to move to. According to the study, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Arizona feature some of the highest ratios of people moving in.

Meanwhile, the most popular destination for relocation is Washington, D.C. “It’s a high-cost area,” says Stoll, “but it features good economic opportunities. It has a maturing high-tech sector and many Federal government jobs, which are more stable in recessions.” Furthermore, D.C. attracts highly educated professionals, and Stoll says college-educated young people between the ages of 18 to 35 are the most likely to move.

One big surprise from the study is Oregon, which is the second most popular state with 61% inbound migration. Although it’s not the typical temperate climate of a retirement spot, Stoll believes hipster city Portland may be attracting both older individuals and young people with its mix of economic growth, cutting edge urban planning and scenic landscape.

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Stoll leaves out one of the most important reasons for people fleeing NJ — the high taxes. A study a couple of years back showed that $70 billion of wealth had left NJ in the previous several years, thus escaping estate, income and other taxes. And when money moves out, people often follow. NJ ranks at or near the bottom in lists of low-tax states and best climates for business, so these United numbers are right in line with these other rankings. Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican darling in much of the country, has held off the Dem-controlled legislature from raising taxes, but he has not been able to cut any. In the end, NJ is a deep blue state with high taxes and heavy regulation–just like many of United’s top 10 states for packing up. Entrepreneurs and other business owners know they have a much better shot at success in a business-friendly state, and retirees see no reason to see their savings taxed away. Many NJ retirees aren’t looking for warmer winters–they retire right over the border, to Pennsylvania and Delaware, where taxes and other costs are much lower.

I would bet a large majority (at least 65-70%) of the people leaving NJ are retirees but I would like to see actual demographics instead of just the overall net number. Elderly people leaving a state is generally a beneficial thing for most states generally because gov’t expenses for seniors on a per capita basis are almost always the highest of any any group & often by a wide margin.

It really doesn’t tell you much and provides almost no descriptive value or insights.

John, there is always a new way to look at a situation and here is another look at the people you paint as liberated heroes from unjust taxation.

Let’s first establish the premise that urban, industrial states have more economic activity, more services to support that industrial activity, and more taxes than a low service, economically moribund state such as Montana or Idaho.

Economically active states require more and better infrastructure, such as roads, schools and yes, prisons. Opportunity carries a higher cost. If you deny this basic common sense, we can’t have an argument in the real world.

Given this common sense, what we have are people who are making their fortunes in an economically active state, reaping the financial rewards on the infrastructure it provides, on the workers that the state educated and provided for, and the state did their basic job and ensured that the states workers came to work educated, safely and on time for this business owner.

After receiving the benefits of these state policies that enriched them for years, they run across the border to states with slightly lower taxes and educate their children out of spite for the state that made them who they are.

Not only that, after taking the profits they earned on the states infrastructure, they have the nerve to act as though they are martyrs, when the only real benefit they accrue is slightly less state taxes on the interest their fortunes idly generate for them.

No, Jeff, your premise is rather faulty. By no means do urban areas need more taxes to support more services. Look at places such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei with far better services, better schools, much better infrastructure and yet far, far lower taxes. In the U.S., Texas and Florida are good examples of this. NJ’s economy is moribund, by comparison. Where you’re wrong is thinking that the higher costs of an urbanized area automatically requires higher taxes. The reverse is more often true–the growth and wealth of a well-run state or region generates vastly greater revenue, allowing taxes to be lowered. NJ, NY and other fading states enjoyed this dynamic in the good times, spending every penny of the extra revenue and committing to all sorts of programs and services and (the biggest culprit) govt worker benefits and pensions that could never be sustained. When the revenue slipped, they raised taxes, starting the vicious cycle they’re in today–higher taxes, people move out, revenue drops, taxes get raised, more people move out.

Jeff – you declare that the business owner is enriched by the State, reaping and taking profits that the State provided, inferring that those profits are not theirs to do with what they please, but must be returned to the State, since in all fairness it comes from the State. That may be true in Communist China, but this is America, where you are free to pursue you dreams, build a business selling a product or service, have property rights on what you earn, and the right to do with what is yours, including moving to another state for whatever reason.

You are right that your view is valid in many eyes, including Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Obama.

In the end, John, your proposed reason for NJ and NY are just a theory, and it seems to me a bit of opportunism to advance your political philosophy. Without some kind of exit poll on who’s leaving, we really don’t know what their rationale is or if there’s any statistically significant pattern at all.

As an alternative to explain NJ, if you see my post below there were a large number of families in 2010-2012 who moved out of NJ due to military BRAC, which obviously has nothing to do with taxation but possibly everything to do with political bedfellows in Washington. NJ has also suffered in the tech sector for many years now from the breakup of AT&T / Bell Laboratories by court order, as telecom used to be a big employer in NJ and that has shrunk considerably.

As to your THEORY, Kiplinger’s ranked the 10 least-friendly states for taxation on retirees, and while NJ, NY, and CT were included, so were RI, VT, MT, MN, NE, OR, and CA, none of which made the exodus list above.